Fate's Mistress: Book Three of The Three Graces Series

By Laura du Pre

Fate's Mistress: Book Three of the Three Graces Trilogy


Fate can be a cruel mistress...

Cousins to the King of Navarre, the Cleves sisters witness the glamour and danger of the French royal court firsthand. Middle sister, Catherine, is married to the Duc de Guise, the most rabid Catholic in France. Ambitious and well-connected, Guise is the main rival for the French throne which is currently occupied by an unpopular Henri III.

Guise won concessions from Henri, but concessions come with a steep price on his head. As his Duchesse, Catherine is in a dangerous position of her own. Determined to play her part in bringing about the downfall of the Valois and the rise of the Guise, Catherine will risk her own safety.

But is the risk worth the rewards? Will either of them escape with their lives? Catherine has to take a chance for herself, and the consequences will change French history.

Based on a true story

The Cleves sisters' story concludes with Catherine, who stands in the middle of court politics in France of the 1500s. Like most great noble families of the period, the web of intermarriages and alliances made enemies out of blood relatives. It also meant that the stories of the people who served the Valois monarchs were as intertwined and as complicated as their marriages.

Led by the ever-vigilant Catherine de Medici, Queen Mother of France and a force of nature, the members of the court shaped the political and religious future of France of the Sixteenth Century. In the trilogy, you'll meet the often- derided Charlotte, Madame de Sauve, and enough royal mistresses to satisfy your need for scandal.

˃˃˃ Don't miss out!

France will never be the same by the time Catherine's story ends. So don’t wait, scroll up and grab your copy today. You'll instantly be front and center at the world of the Valois court, and all the danger and splendor of Renaissance France!




 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura du Pre
• Release date: Jun 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781950571079

Book preview

scandal.

1

Hotel de Guise, November 1586

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Henri, for God's sake—slow down! I cannot keep up. My legs are too short! I watched as my husband's wide shoulders trailed down the hallway before me, his enraged voice booming from the thick, stone walls. I scurried behind him, doing my best to keep pace with him. When he was in one of his rages, there was no reasoning with him. Yet, that fact had never stopped me before. I was in the third month of my latest pregnancy, my twelfth, and could still scamper behind my husband.

His hulking legs continued to put him further away from me, taking one step to match my two. I was far from the shortest woman at court, but Henri, the Duc de Guise, was a giant of a man. No man in France could measure up to his height, the blond giant towered over every man at court. Unfortunately for me, he had a personality to match his oversized body.

Henri! I screeched at the top of my lungs, taking my turn in the game we had perfected in the two decades of our marriage. Neither of us would fit a priest's view of a Godly or virtuous man or woman, but then, neither of us had attempted to pretend that we were anything other than what we were. This arrangement made it easy to be honest with one another. Our determination to be brutally honest with one another that we found ourselves in screaming matches with one another, but on this one occasion, I was not the person who had enraged my hulking husband.

The person in question was his August Majesty, King Henri III of France, Duc d' Anjou and only surviving son of Catherine de Medici. Last summer, my husband and his Catholic League had successfully compelled the king to agree to place him in charge of the armies of France. My husband immediately appointed his younger brother, the Duc de Mayenne to attack the Protestants that swarmed across France. When the terms were set in the heat of summer, we breathed a sigh of relief that the king had finally come to his senses and protected France from invasion and the threat of heresy from the Protestant queen of England and my heretic cousin, the King of Navarre.

Today, however, my husband received word from his spies in Normandy that the king had spent the last three months in secret negotiations with the Protestants behind his back. All the work that Mayenne did on the battlefield was for nothing. Worse still the king casually broke his promise to the Guise brothers to follow their advice in leading the armies of France.

I continued to catch up with him, but he stormed out of the front door of our house and onto the courtyard below, where a saddled horse always waited for him. Watching him so, I seethed. I knew where he was going. He would see that strumpet.

Do not misunderstand me—I am no moralist who chafes at a philandering husband. I have had my share of lovers myself. I am too lively to be satisfied with a single man, even if that man is my husband; even if he is arguably the most handsome man at court. I have never begrudged Henri for his mistresses as he has rarely objected to my lovers. I object to the idea that he is going to take out his frustration with another woman, while ignoring me. I have spent too many years in service to the Guise family to allow them to shut me out today.

I storm back to my own rooms, passing one of the many retainers who have sworn loyalty to the Guise and the Catholic League. Our cavernous home, the Hotel de Guise, purchased by the previous Duke and my mother-in-law, has more than enough room to house the people necessary to sustain a rebellion. Every person in this house has been a party to the seditious acts against the king and his favorites. As one of my husband's most ardent allies, I do not take well to being shut out of his council.

Once at my desk, I pulled out a pen and paper and composed letters to allies across France. My husband might not want to acknowledge my usefulness to the League, but there were many people who would. After he finished having his sport in bed, we would have words.

Every time I think Henri Valois cannot sink any further, he surprises me! My sister-in-law, the widowed Duchesse de Montpensier, sat her wine on the table before her, careful not to spill any on the intricate lace cloth before her. Her wording was deliberate; while the rest of us still continued to refer to the man on the throne of France as the King, she insisted on insulting him by referring to him as Henri Valois as if he were an ordinary citizen. If Montpensier had her way, he would soon become an ordinary citizen. Amongst the noblewomen who ran the female contingent of the League, she was the most ardent. There was no moderation in her tone or in her actions. If she ran the League, Catherine of Lorraine would gladly march upon the Louvre and burn the King in his bed as he slept.

You would think for his own survival, he would take advice from someone other than that useless fop Épernon. As soon as the man's name was out of my mouth, I ground my teeth. Épernon enjoyed the place that rightfully belonged to my husband and the members of the Guise and Lorraine families. As the highest-ranking nobles of France, their place was at the king's hand. Yet, Henri III had raised up virtual peasants to the lucrative posts that kept the nobles from going into virtual bankruptcy. It had forced far too many of our retainers and allies to sell land and assets to make up for losing offices that were rightfully theirs.

If he had common sense. She absentmindedly picked at the ruffs at her wrists. He would listen more to your brother-in-law. I groaned inwardly at her accusation. My brother-in-law was the man who had risen with the king's ascension to the throne; and a man who had long-served the Valois kings of France. Louis Gonzaga, who took over my father's title of Duc de Nevers by marrying my older sister, was the only voice of reason left in the king's privy chamber. Louis' continued presence there gave us hope that eventually, he would get through to the king. Yet, judging by the king's past decisions, he would ignore Louis as soon as Épernon whispered into his royal ear.

I shook my head, I never know what is in Louis' mind. I know that part of him agrees passionately with the League. He is as loyal a Catholic as we are. Yet, he works to remain as neutral as he can. It's as if he's terrified to stand up and decide.

She shrugged, Then speak to Henriette. She is your sister. I can no more control my sister than my husband can control his, I thought, as I avoided Montpensier's gaze. As controlling as the woman who sat before me was, Henriette was just as nebulous. I never knew her mind either. Sometimes, I felt as if my sister was a cold, calculating fish.

I have a relationship with my sister, and the king himself made it so. Henriette was once the most senior woman in the queen's household, as well-placed in the king's court as her husband. In a characteristically stupid move, however, the king decided one evening to trap my sister in a fake affair and expose Henriette before the court. She fled from the court in humiliation and has barely made any effort to return. If I wish to see her, I usually have to drop by the Hotel de Nevers and make a sisterly visit. Even though it is selfish, I am very put out by her self-imposed exile from court. Without her, I have few real friends to rely upon, save my radical sister-in-law. Montpensier is quite a handful, angrily railing against the king at every opportunity. I count myself as a radical, but her extremism gets on my nerves regularly.

Catherine, you mentioned the new printing blocks—would you show them to me?

She clapped her hands. Of course! I was afraid you would never ask. Come! Standing, she pulled me up from my chair and dragged me outside as I struggled to put on my heavy cape. The damp cold settled on Paris this time of the year, bringing with it a heavy fog over the river. With an almost gleeful bounce in her step, she led me to the stables of her Hotel de Guise and at an empty stall, she glanced both ways and opened the padlock.

Here they are. The carvers finished just last week. I paid them well for their silence. Throwing back a horse blanket, she showed the wooden printing blocks. One of them depicted the King of France as a priest, shorn of his hair and shorn of his crown. The price of betrayal of Gaul. the inscription screamed in bold lettering. Another featured a Protestant army, marching upon the familiar walls of Paris, with babies hanging aloft on pikes. I glanced at Montpensier, Isn't that a trifle much? My stomach lurched at the sight and the wave of nausea caused by my pregnancy.

Innocents suffer in war, and if the Protestants and their mercenaries from Germany and Switzerland march across France without opposition, there is no telling what horrors the city will endure. It is best we acknowledge the danger and do something before this image comes true! Her eyes shone with the passion of a fanatic. In those brown depths, I saw a touch of madness. Still, I knew that I had few friends and allies in Paris, and given how Henri had pushed me away a few days before, I could not afford to alienate his sister. Instead, I turned to look at another plate.

This one doesn't have an image, I frowned, trying to make sense. She made a reverse nod, acknowledging my confusion.

This is blank so we can create pamphlets from it. The lines are there to make the sentences straight. Here, she rummaged around in the hay until she found a small sack, are the individual letters that the printers will use to make the pamphlets. The beauty of this is that we can use many combinations of letters. We can make several pamphlets and we can do it.

And are you certain you want them taken from your house? At least there, you can have complete control over the printing process. Something told me that the wooden blocks in front of me were a portent of trouble, but I did not know just how troublesome they would later prove to be. For the moment, my main objection was the added activity they would bring to my home.

She shrugged, Henri promised. As I am a widow, it would not do for someone to see me instigating rebellion against the king's policies. My mouth snapped open in shock. Was she serious? There was no woman in Paris better known for instigating and fermenting rebellion against the king! Why would she bother to stop now? Had she finally realized that she had gone too far? Did she know that the blocks were too dangerous? Yes, her sex would cause the king to have mercy on her if someone found the blocks at her home, but it was not a given. She faced just as much danger as the rest of us.

Still, I wanted to show my usefulness to my husband. Having control of the words printed by the League across the city of Paris carried with it an irresistible amount of power. Despite my earlier sense of foreboding, I turned to her.

I'll see that Philobert finds a place for him at the Hotel de Guise. At least inside my home, they would be under my control. I would see to that.

Life at the court was taxing for me. Since 1579, my husband and the king openly quarreled, and the king constantly took pains to make little insults towards my husband and every member of his family. Once the two were playmates, a reflection of the vaunted position that the Guise and my mother-in-law, a granddaughter of a king, enjoyed at court. Soon after the king came to the throne, however, he allowed other men to poison his once close friendship with my husband.

Never at a loss for ambitious men to fawn over him, the king had selected a man named Quelus and another, Charles de Balsac, Sieur d'Entragues. as his particular favorites in